I am skeptical. What kind of professional tips can translation.net give me that I cant get by looking around the Web at localized sites?
There are too many tips to name all of them, but here is an example. Many web sites that are poorly localized have flags that represent the different languages. People click on the flags to display the language of their choice. This can actually alienate more users than it impresses. For English language navigation, should a British flag, a Canadian flag, a United States flag, or an Australian flag be presented? Wouldn’t shipping policies, spelling, and even marketing talk be different in different English speaking countries? This may not seem so severe an example, but for many country / language combinations it is easier to offend than to make a good impression! Perhaps the best way to localize a big site that covers many regions is to ask the user on the entry page what his ‘locale preference’ is and then proceed.
